Decision ‘08

Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a thing of the past, in Baghdad, at least, according to the U.S. military:

American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June.

“Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak,” and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.

General Fil attributed the decline to improvements in the Iraqi security forces, a cease-fire ordered by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, the disruption of financing for insurgents, and, most significant, Iraqis’ rejection of “the rule of the gun.”

His comments, in a broad interview over egg rolls and lo mein in a Green Zone conference room, were the latest in a series of upbeat assessments he and other commanders have offered in recent months. But his descriptions revealed a city still in transition: tormented by its past, struggling to find a better future.

“The Iraqi people have just decided that they’ve had it up to here with violence,” he said, while noting that their demands for electricity, water and jobs have intensified.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced families are returning to their homes, but a majority of them are still afraid to go back to neighborhoods now segregated by sect. “Clearly,” General Fil said, “it will take some time for Baghdad to restore itself to what it was.”

He and other military commanders have maintained for months that the conditions for national reconciliation have been met. They argue that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni extremist group that American intelligence agencies say is foreign-led, has been weakened. They cite in particular the rise of the American-supported citizen volunteers — 67,000 nationwide, according to military figures.

And though Sunni extremist groups could revive and “reinfest very quickly,” General Fil said, Iraq’s leaders should now have the peace they need to build a trusted, cross-sectarian government. But progress toward that, he said, has been “disappointing.”

Soon, General Fil said, there will be fewer troops for the Iraqis to rely on. “Already we are at a point where we’ll see that as the surge forces depart the city, we’ll see a natural decline in numbers, and I’m very comfortable where that comes to,” he said.

With less than two months to go before his division heads home, General Fil offered a mixed vision of the military’s role for the coming year. He said that if 2007 was the year of security, 2008 would probably be “a year of reconstruction, a year of infrastructure repair, and a year of, if there’s going to be a surge, a year of the surge of the economy.”

He acknowledged that dislodging Shiite militias from control of gasoline, government ministries and other sources of power would be difficult.

The biggest threat to Baghdad’s security is now Shiite militias, he said. Infrastructure weaknesses and unemployment are also serious obstacles, which American efforts at the local level cannot fully address because “these become national-level problems,” he said. Violence, meanwhile, despite recent declines in some areas, has moved to some degree to rural villages and towns from major cities, American and Iraqi commanders said.

How many progressive myths are shattered by this article? Let me get the ball rolling:

1. The surge was intended to be a permanent escalation.

2. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was an administration invention.

3. The military and administration don’t acknowledge the contribution of the Sadr cease-fire in the decline of violence.

4. The U.S. is ignoring the decline in infrastructure.

5. The U.S. is blind to the lack of political progress.

6. The military trumpets the violence decline in Baghdad while ignoring the shift of some of that violence to other areas.

None of these oft-repeated ‘truisms’ is borne out by this interview with the commander of American forces in Baghdad.

We have jumped the gun before on ‘winning in Iraq’, and I’m very gun-shy (no pun intended)…but we have definitely turned a corner. Whether it leads to a permanantly feasible military and political compromise that will function as a normal nation has yet to be seen…but only the most obtuse would deny progress at this point…

8 Responses to “Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out”

1 Gulf Coast Bandit Says:
November 10th, 2007 at 1:39 am
No comments from the resident leftists, eh? Well, that’s to be expected, they run at the first sign of forward motion.
2 Sean P Says:
November 10th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Well, I’m far from a resident leftist, and I supported this mission from the beginning, and still hope the mission turns out to be a decisive victory, but there is a huge caveat here.

The caveat is this: ever since Al Queda destroyed the Shiite temple (Dome of the Rock, I THINK) back in February 2006, they succeeded in radicalizing the Shiite in Southern Iraq. A final victory over Al Queda in the Sunny provinces is a huge victory and could very well hand Al Queda a victory from which it will never recover, but unfortunately, that is no longer enough. We also need to achieve victory over the pro Iranian elements in Southern Iraq and we need NEED the people of Southern Iraq to reject the Al-Maliki government that has, through comission or omission, enabled said radicals.
3 Aaron Says:
November 10th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
The Dome of the Rock is attached to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The Shia shrine AQI destroyed was Al Askari.
4 Andy Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 1:44 am
Um, Mark, regarding #2, don’t you think that’s the epitome of cognitive dissonance? If AQI was never in Iraq, then of course we could claim to have kicked them out! /sarcasm.

Sure is quiet on the leftist front.

I agree that we’ve turned the corner, but like anything else, I fear ole Murphy’s law will inconveniently pop up and the dems will bum-rush us out before we can crystallize the situation.
5 CrawlinKingSnake Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Judging by the media coverage I have seen lately it seems as though they are going to bypass Iraq completely and shift all of the same old arguments directly to Afganistan. “Yes, but Afganistan” could be the new mantra.
6 Mark Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Yeah, but Andy, the claim in some progressive corners was that we had ‘invented’ or ‘exaggerated’ al-Queda in Iraq to justify the continued presence of troops - if that were so, we would be saying the problem had gotten worse, not better…
7 Andy Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Mark, concur.

CKS, I wonder how Obama is going to reconcile his current rhetoric about we should be more concentrated in Afghanistan, even as the death toll is rising to all time highs? Is he going to stay the course, or switch gears to say we need to get out of the “civil war” there? At least our NATO allies are sharing the brunt of causalities, if not more so.

In the end, I think we’re going to see a cascade effect in Iraq, where reconciliation of national unity will accelerate and insurgents thoroughly marginalized to the fringe. Of course, it’ll help if Syria & Iran could be stopped from trying to destabilize the peace.
8 Sean P Says:
November 12th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Aaron: Thanks for the clarification.